


protect and border and salute

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - School, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Charles Is a Darling, Childhood Friends, Cuddling & Snuggling, Erik makes sense, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, Libraries, Schoolboys, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new boy in Erik's class, and everyone else is nervous around him. Not Erik.</p>
            </blockquote>





	protect and border and salute

**Author's Note:**

  * For [helens78](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/gifts).



> Marked as "Underage" because both Erik and Charles are both under 15. They snuggle, though!
> 
> Title taken from Rainier Maria Rilke.

The silence would stay in Erik's memory for a long time afterward: the silence that fell upon the classroom late in the morning on a winter's day when the door had opened in the middle of the mathematics lesson and Miss MacTaggert announced that a new boy would be joining them in class.

Events like that were rare, even when everyone had gotten used to the idea of men and women and children with special abilities: this was a mixed class, and some of them could control the weather and manipulate metal and heal themselves and others, and some of them were exceptionally good in mathematics and languages and art. Erik knew that on a normal day the arrival and introduction of someone new meant whispers and interest and people getting ready to show off - but today, no one was smiling except their teacher, who looked worried and welcoming at the same time.

Erik was familiar with her expression, as it was very similar to his mother's smile.

The boy who walked slowly into the classroom was dressed in a suit, a black suit, and there was a faded and drooping white rose pinned to his jacket. He was all but clinging to the battered blue box that he was carrying.

Erik's ability told him that the metal of the box was old, and that it contained half a dozen different battered pens, and that the boy was trembling as he held on to it.

The new boy's eyes were blue, a strange blue that Erik had never seen before, and that was saying a lot when Raven who sat on his right side had skin like deep water, a beautiful blue that stood out even more against the white dresses that she liked to wear.

Those blue eyes were rimmed all around with red, which made sense when the boy sniffled and all but started when Miss MacTaggert said, gently, "When you're ready, you can introduce yourself. Do it however you like, with your voice or with your ability. Whatever you're comfortable with."

Erik watched the boy open his mouth and close it, and look around at the classroom and again at the teacher, before he took one hand off his box - before he pressed the fingertips of that hand to his temple and closed his eyes.

_Hello. My name is Charles Xavier. Please excuse me for crying._

"Telepath," Armando whispered behind Erik, and his was a voice that carried, and everyone looked at him, and then at Charles, and then at the empty seat on Erik's left side.

Erik still missed Emma, sometimes, because she was smart and because she made jokes that made you laugh and made you think afterwards, and because she had been strangely kind to him and to Raven despite being two years older - but it had been several months since she had been taken away from them. Miss MacTaggert had mentioned that Emma had been taken away by her family because she was under a lot of stress, that she had been struggling to control both her primary ability of telepathy and her secondary ability to turn into living diamond.

Charles looked younger than Erik, a little older than Raven - and he was small besides, thin and short and hunched in on himself.

"Welcome, Charles," Miss MacTaggert said after a moment. 

The rest of the class said the same thing, their voices ringing out in the classroom, and Charles seemed to shrink back in surprise, though he was soon trying to smile.

Erik looked at him carefully, and tried to remember everything Emma had taught him about projecting. _Hello, Charles. Welcome. My name is Erik._

He watched Charles blink, apparently confused. _Hello, Erik,_ he said.

Because there were no other empty seats in the classroom Charles ended up in Emma's, and then Miss MacTaggert was saying "Where were we?" and they gradually fell back into the math lesson.

Erik was trying to figure out one of the graphs when he caught a glimpse of Charles staring at him, and he shot him a lopsided smile and tapped his own forehead with the hand that wasn't holding his pen. _If you want to speak to me like this, and only like this, I don't mind._

_Why?_ Charles's eyes widened over the top edges of his textbook. _People are afraid of me, when they find out about my ability. But you - you're not afraid. Just worried. I promise I'm not reading your thoughts. I'm just -_

Erik looked around to make sure that no one was watching, then tore a page out of his notebook and wrote: _No one should have to hide who they are and what they can do._

He passed the note over to Charles, and there was silence in his head for a minute - he could feel it in the sweep of the minute hand across the face of the clock atop the blackboard - and then there was an image in his head, crystal clear, warmth and light and pressure that for a moment he looked down at his own hands in pleased surprise. His hands that were still holding a pen and pinning the left-hand page of his textbook down.

The image had been of Charles's hands wrapped around both of his.

Erik smiled and made sure that Charles could see it, even though they were both supposed to be answering the exercise that Miss MacTaggert had asked the class to do.

 _You can ask me why I was crying,_ Charles offered after they moved on to another page in the textbook.

 _You can tell me when you want to, not just because I want you to,_ Erik said, and then made a face at his own nonsense.

Charles didn't answer, and Erik very carefully and very deliberately didn't look over to check in on him.

The quiet sniffles seemed to tell a story in and of themselves, as did Charles’s broken whisper: “I miss you.” 

///

Erik was just about to turn a page of _The Little Prince_ when his metal-sense let him know that someone was moving toward him: a pocketful of change, a battered pen, zippers and buttons on an oversized parka.

He was ready when the cushions shifted, and he used the momentum to settle more comfortably into his corner.

Soft mutter of thoughts in his head that weren't his. After several months, however, Erik was used to them by now, and he was just as used to the fact that Charles was a huddler, was someone who was always trying to stay warm.

He also knew enough now to understand that Charles's need for warmth might have some connection to the pin in his right leg. For himself, for boys like Alex and Armando and Hank, that usually meant some kind of stupid trick that began with the words, “Hey, look at this!” 

But from Charles he got the idea of something old and deep and painful, and that meant that he was in no hurry to hear that particular story.

There were days when Erik wondered how it was possible for people to even understand each other, because he’d had raging arguments with Raven and Emma both, and they were his friends.

Now he tended to wonder more about the other half of that argument: how was it possible for two people who didn’t really know each other to - well, to _know_ things about each other, to understand things about each other? 

Charles was oblivious beside him, his thoughts a welter of names: _Spanish Civil War - George Orwell? - Taro and Capa and the falling soldier - Father’s camera -_

“That’s strange,” Erik murmured, fingers tracing thoughtfully over the illustration of the lamplighter at work. “Not a bad strange, not a good strange. Just strange.”

Charles didn’t even look up from the book in his lap to raise what looked like an irate eyebrow in Erik’s direction.

“I don’t understand what you’re thinking about, Charles,” Erik drawled, just short of mocking him. “I can hear you, and I think you’re thinking in a Western language, but I’m not sure.”

There was another long moment of concentrated silence, and then Charles looked around to make sure that there was no one in the reading room with them.

Erik looked over the back of the couch at the door, closing it with a little help from the ornate brass doorknob and the well-oiled hinges.

“Okay, we’re alone,” Erik said.

Charles’s answering smile was a little lopsided, and he was talking about another topic entirely. “I’m cold.”

“I know,” Erik said. “Blankets? Fire?”

“Can I just sit next to you?”

“You were doing that just now.”

“I mean, something like this,” Charles said, before he deliberately toppled himself over so that he was lying down in Erik’s lap.

“This isn’t exactly what I would call sitting next to a person,” Erik said, but he was half-laughing as he said it. _Welcome,_ he thought at Charles at the same time.

 _If I do this I might not be able to shield against you. I might be intruding on your mind._ Charles wiggled his fingertips in the direction of his temple. _If I’m in physical contact -_

 _I know,_ and Erik nodded as he put an image forward: Emma’s hands holding his and Raven’s, the three of them standing in a tight knot of worry and sadness and holding back tears. 

_If - when - I get stronger, maybe I can try to contact her for you,_ Charles said. _There really aren’t very many of us out there. Telepathy is a rare gift. As well it should be._

Erik asked, _How much stronger can you get?_

Charles squirmed a little, trying to get settled. _I have no idea. I’ve never tried to push the limits. There was a long pause. Can I tell you a secret?_

Erik nodded. “However you want, when you want.”

He was still surprised when Charles murmured, “I don’t know if I have any limits. I - not because I haven’t tried to reach them, because I have. But there are days when it feels like _there are none_. And some days that makes me happy, and some days that makes me feel afraid.”

Erik thought of Edie, worried and welcoming, and said, with all the sincerity that he had in him, with all the conviction that he could muster, “I know exactly how that feels.”

 _Magnetic fields,_ Charles said, nodding in understanding. _The entire planet._

Erik nodded again. 

There was silence for a while, and Erik filled it by thinking about the rose and the snake and the sunset. 

Charles was thinking about the phrase _They shall not pass_ in several languages.

 _That feels nice,_ Erik sent, eventually. _It’s like we’re thinking next to each other._

_That is exactly what we’re doing, I think._

Erik made a face, and grinned when Charles stuck his tongue out at him. _I meant that we are two separate people, we are two separate minds, and we are right next to each other. We’re not - we’re not “merging”, and I don’t think that’s the right word._

Charles closed his eyes and smiled. “I think I know exactly what you mean.”

“Good,” Erik said, “because I might not have been making sense even inside my own head. You make me feel that way. I’m not complaining, Charles. It’s a good thing. Believe me.”

Minutes passed before Charles answered, “I do believe you.” And: “Thank you.”

“Always,” Erik said, and the way he said it, he thought he sounded like he was making a promise - a promise that he wanted to keep.


End file.
